The AINATA project explores how artificial intelligence (AI) impacts trust and authenticity in the news ecosystem. It investigates the effects of AI on both news production and consumption as well as the adequacy of current legal frameworks in addressing these transformations.
As AI increasingly shapes the online environment, it blurs the lines between authentic news and AI-generated information. This threatens the trustworthiness of news and complicates citizens’ ability to find reliable information, posing significant risks to informed democratic participation and the foundations of democracy.
By integrating empirical social science and legal analysis, the AINATA project studies the roles of news producers and consumers in an AI-driven landscape. We conduct surveys, experiments, and interviews to gather empirical evidence, which informs the evaluation of current regulations in order to propose effective strategies to ensure authenticity and trust in the news ecosystem.
In our first study, we explore how journalists distinguish between authentic and AI-generated content and how public narratives portraying AI as an “epistemic threat” affect their confidence and trust in information. Using realistic news scenarios across different topics, we examine both detection accuracy and how caution and doubt shape journalistic verification in the AI era.
Our project launched in Fall 2025. So far the team (see photo) consists of Lynge Asbjørn Møller (postdoc), Lena Frischlich and Ayo Næsborg Andersen (Associate Professors, co-supervisors) and Claes de Vreese(Professor, PI).
Watch the DDC site and social media channels in late 2025/early 2026 for open positions in this project at the PhD and postdoc level.